Hands-on Unreal Tournament III

We got to see Unreal Tournament III running side by side on PC and PS3. Both versions obviously looked fantsatic, and it was great to see how nearly identical they look. However, the incredible resolution of the PC version made it the clearly superior offering. A representative from Epic told us that the PS3 version is still being tweaked, and that details about the resolution and framerate it will run at won't be revealed yet as they're still trying to optimize the performance for the console.

UTIII will feature the return of many fan-favorite weapons, but we saw a couple of a new additions. Of particular note had to be a weapon that generated a time-warping field. A cube can be created, and within that cube, all time gets slowed down significantly. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the field, we saw the Flak Cannon shoot into the field. As the spray entered the field, it came to a crawl, and the player was able to run past the flak and see it exit the other side, at full momentum. We don't know if this will make a significant change to battles, but it certainly was a cool effect, nonetheless.

In addition, UTIII will feature a greater variety of vehicles. The coolest addition has to be the hoverboard, which is readily accessible at all times. This allows players to move much more quickly, and can be used while holding a CTF flag. A new single player mode was briefly demonstrated, and it shows a lot of potential. The offline single player from previous Unreal Tournament titles were slim on story and options. In the newly updated single player campaign, players will be able to watch a story unfold, and choose a non-linear path through various missions.

The new Warfare mode combines features from Onslaught and Assault mode from Unreal Tournament 2004. This mode encourages cooperation between the players to capture a set number of nodes. When a node is captured, that particular team has access to an increased arsenal of weapons and vehicles.

Windows XP and VIsta users will be able to use an included toolset to create their own levels and modifications. According to an Epic representative, players will be able to transfer their creations from the PC to the PS3 seamlessly. However, when we asked if PS3 owners would need to purchase the PC version of the game to use the tools, the Epic representative was unable to comment. We'd love to see the tools made available for free for all players, regardless of system. Considering the incredible wealth of modifications in previous Unreal Tournament games, we think the mod community would agree.